There’s a chasm between Ireland’s woke political class and voters
by David Thunder, Mercator:
To say that the Irish government has misread the public mood in recent years would be an understatement. On a range of issues, from hate speech and woke ideology to housing, healthcare, and immigration, Ireland’s traditionally dominant political parties, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, have become increasingly disconnected from the everyday needs and concerns of their constituents.
They thought they could dismiss hundreds of protests across the country against immigration policies as the handiwork of right-wing extremists, until opinion polls revealed that a substantial majority of the population considers we are taking in too many refugees, and can relate to local concerns over refugee accommodation centres.
A case in point is a recent RedC poll from January 2024 showing that 66 percent of respondents in a national sample believe Ireland is taking in too many refugees. Another example is an Irish Times/IPSOS B&A poll from February in which 69 percent of respondents said that they would have “some concerns” if a building in their local area was given over to accommodate asylum seekers.
Tone-deaf
Ireland’s ruling political class thought public sentiment was on their side when they sought to introduce radical hate speech legislation (the Hate Offences Bill that is now before the Senate), but the overwhelming majority (73 percent) of submissions during their public consultation on the matter were opposed to the proposed legislation.
They thought they could handily chalk off another “progressive” victory by introducing a more “inclusive” definition of family and carers in the home, but were taken completely off guard when both referenda faced overwhelming defeat in almost every constituency in the country.
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